Chapter Six Dolly #3
‘So that’s what I wanted to do,’ she says, dragging me back to the moment. ‘I wanted to be the person who made the crossings for hedgehogs.’
‘Hedgehogs?’ I laugh a little and I see the stardust falter. ‘No, I don’t think it’s silly. I’m just surprised you chose hedgehogs when you just mentioned orangutans.’
It takes her a moment to believe me, I think. ‘I’m really more of a hedgehog kind of girl,’ she says eventually.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh.’
‘It’s okay. I laughed about you wanting to be a mortician.’
I’m relieved she’s not upset, but I can still see a kind of closing up inside.
Carys looks at me now, and her body seems held purposefully, like a ballet dancer.
‘I can’t imagine you on TikTok. Not because you’re not beautiful and funny, but I don’t have an account so to me it’s just the animal videos I see getting reposted to Instagram. ’
‘Yeah, I’m not really filming animals over there.’
‘But it’s not just recipes? You said lifestyle content too. What is that?’
I wonder how to explain this if all she sees are videos of foxes and raccoons being friends. ‘Do you ever see –’ I take a breath, raise my voice into the influencer tone, and say, ‘– come with me for a day in the life?’
She bursts into giggles. ‘Yes, I know them. That’s vlogging, right?’
‘That name signals to the youths that we are ancient crones, but yes, I do a variation on those. So instead of just sharing a recipe I might be like what I eat in a day as a girlie who doesn’t restrict, or what I eat to power my workout, which always confuses people when they see a fat girl.’
She thinks for a moment, tapping her fingers against her chin. ‘I guess mine would be like come with me for a day in the life of mucking out the pigs.’
‘Probably A Day in the Life on a City Farm, unless you wanted to do some kind of aspirational montage of faeces. You’ve only a few seconds to hook people in, so you essentially are laying out the thesis statement of what’s to come so people stay watching.’
‘That’s very smart. You can help me make some when we’re out of here then. Maybe it would be good to show people what I do for a living? Talk about food chains and green spaces and stuff.’
‘You care a lot about it, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, I do.’ She sighs happily, almost the same tone as when she talks about Patrick.
‘I know it sounds counterintuitive but a lot of it is about the people. Bringing children to see farm animals and touch them and learn about them for the first time. It’s kind of magic to see their eyes light up. ’
‘And you love animals,’ I say, thinking about her and Patrick probably bonding over their favourite sheep breed or something like that.
I admittedly was not expecting her to launch into her favourite sheep breed, something called a Castlemilk Moorit. One of them unexpectedly had twins. ‘Lonnie decided that two were way more than she had bargained for.’
‘Fair enough, really.’
‘My sisters are twins so I can see it, but her plan was to starve one of them.’
‘Oh. Less fair.’
‘Nature can be brutal,’ she says, very matter of fact in the way only animal people can be. ‘So I took him home and bottle-fed him.’
‘In your house?’
‘Yeah, my housemates thought it was cute for a bit but he kept nibbling their stuff. I’d take Smudge to work every day and he’d follow me round everywhere.’
‘That sounds so cute. Is he still like that?’
‘Mostly but he quite likes being a sheep.’
‘You must miss him.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t have to pick up poo off my bedsheets anymore.’
Carys sighs deeply, rubs at her eyes with a knuckle like she’s trying to bore something out.
‘Are you alright?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just tired now.’ She brushes me off in a way that feels very practised too.
‘You know, you can talk to me about anything you want,’ I say slowly, and I notice her gaze, though aimed at the floor, intensify slightly, as she’s taking in what I say. ‘It’ll stay between us. What’s said in the bedroom stays in the bedroom.’
Carys bursts into laughter.
‘Yeah, I heard it,’ I say, laughing along with her. ‘Perhaps not my best choice of words.’
She turns over, lying on her back with David up on the pillow next to her head, and lowers a silky eye mask over her eyes. I almost don’t hear her whisper, ‘Thank you, Dolly,’ before she falls into soft rhythmic snores.
Her ability to fall asleep in about twenty seconds should be studied. I, however, am destined to be wide awake for a while longer.
My hand feels itchy without my phone. Healthy, I know.
Phone might equal job, but phone also equals Mum.
Talking about her here feels like a summoning of worries.
I know Auntie Carol and Jas are with her, but looking after her has been my job for years.
I wish I could call her, even if she’s still angry with me, because then I’d know she’s alright, if a bit pissed off.
I wonder what she’ll think when she sees me on TV.
I’m pretty sure the first dates episode will air in a couple of days – I asked Louise about the airing schedule and she was purposefully vague about it.
They don’t have a strict every night schedule like Love Island, or dump it all in several goes like Love Is Blind, so it’s hard to tell when the real world will creep in.
But it will. It’s inevitable.
I wonder what people will have to say about Warren and me. Will I find a better match tomorrow? Somehow, I doubt it.
When do I bring up with him that I’m a lesbian in it for the money?
I’m pretty sure Warren is my best bet. Now all I’ve got to do is convince the world that I’m in love with him.
And stop thinking about Carys and the delightful little noises she makes in her sleep.